‘Chicago Fire’ Boss Gushes Over Yuriy Sardarov After Character’s Death in Season 8 Premiere

Chicago Fire boss Derek Haas ripped the hearts out of many fans during Season 8’s premiere, in which the squad lost one of its own: Brian Zvonecek, aka Otis. Following the episode, Haas took to Twitter to gush over Yuriy Sardarov, who has starred on the show as Otis since its inception in 2012.

“To [Yuriy Sardarov], thank you for everything for so many years,” the series co-creator and showrunner began. “You shone in every scene… comedy, drama, action, romance, suspense… you did it all, while being generous and hilarious and wonderful. Love you, brother! Look forward to much, much more.”

Sardarov has not yet commented publicly on his character’s death, although fans did flock to his Instagram account, where he had previously shared a promo for the episode, to mourn the loss of his character.

Series star Miranda Rae Mayo, who plays Stella, shared her emotions following the gut-punch, taking to Twitter to respond to a tweet from the show’s official account about Otis’ death. “Literally never been more heart broken watching our show,” she wrote, with fans agreeing wholeheartedly.

Otis was caught in an equipment explosion at the factory after failing to make it into an adjacent room where other firefighters had hidden before the explosion. He did have time to send out a distress call, which led Cruz (Joe Minoso) to find him in time to hold out hope that he would survive. However, hope was lost when Cruz uncovered Otis’ body and saw several severe burns on his body. Cruz keeps an unconscious Otis company in the hospital, asking him to save a spot in heaven for him. At that point, Otis wakes up and utters a phrase in Russian: “Brother, I will be with you, always.”

Haas explained to Entertainment Tonight that while the decision to write off Otis was difficult, it had to be done in order to move the story forward.

“It’s been a long time since we had a main character go,” he said.

“I’ve known Yuriy since before Chicago Fire, since he was a junior in college. We did a movie together that I wrote and produced back in 2011. He’s a great guy. But you think, ‘OK, what can I do that’s going to really put some teeth back into this show, in terms of these dangerous situations that we put our characters in?’ And you can only write them in and out of corners so many times before the audience just stops caring about the situation.

Haas said while the loss seemed to hit Cruz the hardest, everyone will see lasting effects from Otis’ death.

“We didn’t want to just write it off in the first episode and then forget that he existed. That’s not real life and that’s not the way it works,” Haas said. “So this time, I think even more so than we’ve done in previous iterations, we wanted to see how this affects different people in different ways and over a period of time.”

He continued, “Playing off that notion of tragedy takes time before you can get to the other side of it emotionally. That clock is different for different people. The way it affects Joe Cruz, his best friend and roommate, is going to be different than the way it affects Boden, who was his chief, and the way it affects Casey, who is his captain. And the way it affects Brett, who was also his roommate.

“To see those different elements and not cheapen them, and really make it have lasting effects, that’s what we’re doing.”

Chicago Fire airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.